taste
[ teyst ]
/ teɪst /
verb (used with object), tast·ed, tast·ing.
verb (used without object), tast·ed, tast·ing.
noun
Idioms for taste
taste blood.
blood(def 24).
to one's taste,
agreeable or pleasing to one: He couldn't find any ties that were completely to his taste.
Origin of taste
1250–1300; (v.) Middle English
tasten to touch, taste < Old French
taster to touch, explore by touching (Middle French: to touch, taste); cognate with Italian
tastare, Provençal, Old Spanish
tastar < ?; (noun) Middle English
tast sense of touch, a trying, tasting < Old French, derivative of
taster
synonym study for taste
17.
Taste,
flavor,
savor refer to a quality that is perceived when a substance is placed upon the tongue.
Taste is the general word:
the taste of roast beef.
Flavor is a characteristic taste, usually of a pleasing kind, and as of some ingredient put into the food:
lemon flavor.
Savor, much less common than
taste or
flavor, implies pleasing scent as well as taste or flavor, and connotes enjoyment in tasting:
The sauce has an excellent savor.
historical usage of taste
The English noun
taste (Middle English
tast ) is derived from the Middle English verb
tasten “to taste (food, medicine), perceive a flavor, palpate or feel (a patient), experience or feel something (also referring to sexual feeling), test someone or something, attempt.”
Tasten was borrowed from Old French taster “to touch, try,” from an unrecorded Vulgar Latin verb tastāre (or taxtāre or taxitāre ), which is most likely an alteration of a frequentative verb formed from tangere “to touch, tap, taste (food), lay hands on, affect (with emotion), seize, defraud.” (A frequentative verb is one that expresses repetition of an action).
Though the meaning “to try or examine by touch; to feel” is now obsolete, the current figurative meaning “to have a slight experience of something” has developed from that literal use. And of course the primary meaning “to try the flavor of something” is merely referring to another one of our five senses that is stimulated by food taken into the mouth.
Tasten was borrowed from Old French taster “to touch, try,” from an unrecorded Vulgar Latin verb tastāre (or taxtāre or taxitāre ), which is most likely an alteration of a frequentative verb formed from tangere “to touch, tap, taste (food), lay hands on, affect (with emotion), seize, defraud.” (A frequentative verb is one that expresses repetition of an action).
Though the meaning “to try or examine by touch; to feel” is now obsolete, the current figurative meaning “to have a slight experience of something” has developed from that literal use. And of course the primary meaning “to try the flavor of something” is merely referring to another one of our five senses that is stimulated by food taken into the mouth.
OTHER WORDS FROM taste
Words nearby taste
tassel,
tassel flower,
tasset,
tassie,
tasso,
taste,
taste bud,
taste buds,
taste cell,
taste hair,
tasteful
British Dictionary definitions for retaste
taste
/ (teɪst) /
noun
verb
Derived forms of taste
tastable, adjectiveWord Origin for taste
C13: from Old French
taster, ultimately from Latin
taxāre to appraise
Medical definitions for retaste
taste
[ tāst ]
n.
v.
Idioms and Phrases with retaste
taste
see acquired taste; dose (taste) of one's own medicine; leave a bad taste in one's mouth; no accounting for tastes; poor taste.